bread-and-butter

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English

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Etymology

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Reflecting that bread and butter are archetypally basic foodstuffs (daily necessities) in the places where the English language developed; compare daily bread, put bread on the table, earn one's bread, bread and water (as prisoners' diet or poverty diet), and know which side one's bread is buttered on.

Adjective

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bread-and-butter (comparative more bread-and-butter, superlative most bread-and-butter)

  1. Relating to basic sustenance or the requirements for everyday living.
    • 2015, Robert Crane, Christopher Fryer, Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder, page 34:
      These road warrior plays were fronted by former semistars like Forrest Tucker or Hugh O'Brian, who had had their bread-and-butter TV shows cancelled. The job could pay $3,000 to $5,000 a week []
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bread,‎ and,‎ butter.
    bread-and-butter pudding

Interjection

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bread-and-butter

  1. (archaic) A general saying used to ward off bad luck
  2. (archaic) A saying specifically used to ward off bad luck when separating hands to walk either side of a tree
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